Re: gendocs.sh and texi2html

[Bruno Haible]

Patrice Dumas wrote:
> >   - The "Top" node must be included for "makeinfo --html" but it's pointless
> >     in texi2html runs. Since the conditional @ifhtml cannot distinguish 
> > these
> >     situations, I used this:
> 
> What's wrong with having the Top node processed by texi2html?

In the manual I maintain, the "Top" node contains only redundant information:
a brief sentence what the manual documents (duplicates the manual's headline),
and a big @address@hidden menu (ignored anyway since I use --no-menu).

> In general it avoids warnings about nodes that don't appear in menus. 

Yes. Good point. Why does
   "perl texi2html-1.76 --no-menu --no-sec-nav -number -monolithic ..."
give me warnings
   ** node_prev `Top' for `Introduction' not found 
   ** node_up `Top' for `Introduction' not found 
   ** node_up `Top' for `Users' not found 
although I've told texi2html to ignore the menu structure?

> >      @alias ifmakeinfo = ifnottex
> 
> You shouldn't rely on that behaviour, @alias being not implemented is a 
> bug in texi2html. What you should use, instead is:
> 
> @ifset texi2html
> ...
> @end ifset

Thanks for the advice. I'm going to use this construct, since it's way
cleaner that the @alias hack.

> >      @ifmakeinfo
> >      @documentencoding UTF-8
> >      @end ifnottex
> 
> As said later in the thread, '@documentencoding UTF-8' is right for 
> texi2html.

It's right for texi2html-1.76. But I'm using texi2html-1.52 since I don't
see a way to overcome three problems with texi2html-1.76:

  1) Although in the .texi file, I have the @contents command before the
     Top node, texi2html-1.76 puts the table of contents near the end of
     the document. This is fine for books, but is against common conventions
     for HTML documents - which is why I placed the @contents at the beginning.

  2) Is there a way to *not* generate the "About This Document" section?
     IMO, a well-done HTML document shouldn't need explanations of the
     navigation.

  3) The HTML title of the document (generated with -monolithic, without a
     Top node) is the title of the first chapter only.

Bruno